More and more customers opt for cashless payment solutions in Hungary. The ratio of adult internet users who choose to pay without cash if they can has increased from about 33% to 44%. Digital technologies are rapidly adopted in the area of everyday payments, too; the share of people who prefer cashless payment is likely to rise further in the coming years. eNET & OTP Mobil’s second eTrends Monitor survey is focused on adult internet users’ attitudes concerning payment online, with cash, and with mobile devices.

Internet users now prefer cashless payment

In Hungary, even regular internet users were divided over the question of payment methods. About as many people opted for cashless payment as for handing over banknotes, and the ratio of people willing to use either of these two methods was also similar. But the situation has changed. A survey conducted by eNET and OTP Mobil in July 2018 indicates that those who prefer cashless payment are now the majority as opposed to cash payers; the ratio of these two groups is currently 44% and 28%, respectively. The share of those who are open to both payment methods is 29%.

Parking and motorway usage no longer dominate mobile phone payments

Many adult internet users also pay with their bank cards through smartphone browsers (in addition to laptop and desktop computers). Still, when it comes to mobile phones, slightly more people use apps or pay via text messages compared to payment through smartphone browsers. The share of the former group (bank card payers through smartphone browsers) is 31%, while the ratio of the latter group is 38%. Overall, 2.5 million people (44% of adult internet users) pay via their mobile phones (including transactions through browsers, applications and text messages).

As to mobile payment solutions, money transfers via banks’ applications are the most popular (23%), followed by payments initiated from other apps (15%) and dedicated payment applications (14%). Within this latter category, PayPal and Simple are the most widely used.

Online purchases with mobile phones used to be mostly limited to parking and motorway usage (which 31% and 30% of our respondents buy now). But the tables have turned in this regard, too, with transactions in webshops taking the lead. Some 41% of the respondents use their devices for that purpose.

Card data now saved in cashless payment

Besides the addition of new payment solutions, another factor contributing to the proliferation of cashless payment is that service providers are introducing further functions and convenience features in order to render payment easier. Saved card data are one example; users don’t need to find their bank cards and enter the data on them upon each and every electronic payment transaction. Card data can be saved on online interfaces and in mobile applications as well. Two thirds of adult internet users have heard about the online data saving option, and one third of them have already taken advantage of it. More than half of the respondents have heard about saving card data in a mobile app, and one in six have already registered the information on their cards in applications (or assigned their cards to apps).

“In the case of OTP Mobil, saving bank card data for future payments serves two purposes” explains dr. Al-Absi Gáber Seif, OTP Mobil’s Deputy Chief Executive Officer. “On the one hand, it provides a connection between the Simple application and SimplePay, i.e. users of the app can pay in thousands of webshops in a really convenient manner, based on bank card data saved in the system. On the other hand, we also support webshops because, thanks to our convenient solution, they lose fewer customers during the payment process.”

eNET Internet Research

About the press release series:

eNET regularly conducts surveys on specific market segments. eTrends Monitor press releases are aimed at educating players in the online payment market. eNET’s partner in these publications is OTP Mobil. The first research and press release in the series was focused on the trends, present and future of the online payment market in Hungary.

eNET’s latest eTrends Monitor research was conducted with the involvement of 1,134 respondents over 18 years of age, in July 2018, through the online research community Veva.hu. The results are representative of the views of Hungarian internet users aged 18+ in terms of sex, age and region.